The bus crisis.

I have never shit my pants on a bus.

When I was a kid, my friend Rosemary did used to make me laugh so hard that occasionally I would wet my pants and as an adult she still had the same effect on me, but as an adult I could tell her to piss off whilst I sat on a curb or the like, to gain my composure and avoid any unfortunate accidents.

I hate toilet talk. I do not find jokes about toileting or wind amusing in any way and I never have. It’s not funny, I find it all very off-putting. It wasn’t the wall of vaginas I found distasteful at MONA, it was the extra-large working model of a digestive system that really disturbed me.

So shortly after I turned 30 when I had to tell my doctor that there was something wrong with my stomach, I was mortified.

Turned out my stomach wasn’t the problem; it was my head.

The accumulated stress, trauma and worry of my life conveniently manifested itself into my worst nightmare; a panic-inducing, all-consuming fear that I was going to shit my pants in public.

This fear conveniently took over my mind and body predominantly in enclosed spaces such as important meetings and public transport, namely buses and the tube.

Because obviously busses and tube trains don’t have toilets on them and you can’t just step out of important meetings.

If you get caught in a tunnel on the tube because some other poor person has had enough of their stress and trauma and decided to deal with it another way, they aren’t letting you off.

And sometimes there are very long stretches between bus stops and traffic can be dreadful and they aren’t letting you off there either.

So, you’re stuck there and if you shit your pants stuck on a bus or a tube, oh the shame… it would be too much.

For many years now I have developed a keen interest in the location of toilets and avoiding places that don’t have any readily available.

The feeling of panic rising is horrible. I start to sweat, my stomach flips and tightens and my brain tells me that every small gurgle or twitch in my abdomen is oncoming shitting. My eyes can’t focus and I can’t hear properly and my heart races. My brain scraps around for escape routes, even though my brain and I have extensively planned these escape routes well in advance of any possible situation arising, I can’t focus on the plan. I remind myself that I have never shit my pants and I don’t have a sensitive stomach. Sometimes it goes on for maybe 15 minutes at top intensity on public transport and longer in meetings. This is followed by exhaustion. My body has gone to flight mode so intensely it’s knakered itself.

I used to think panic and anxiety was for weak people and I was definitely in the just-get-over-it-your-being-ridiculous-camp, until, as with all things, it happened to me.

Once I found myself in Victoria Station trying to get on a tube to go visit my brother in East London and I couldn’t get on the train. I was on the phone to him crying because you needed 30p in change to access the toilets at the Station and I didn’t have 30p. I eventually managed to get myself home. I didn’t need to use the bathroom at all when I got there.

On a couple of occasions people have, without knowing I have this dreadful problem, randomly started sharing their shitting their pants stories with me.

One classic time was in Manilla when I crammed into a taxi with 3 guys from work heading out one night during a work conference. We are stuck in Manilla traffic, globally recognised as the worst traffic in the world, and Humphrey decided that was the time to tell us the story of his colleague in the Madrid office who had shit her pants on a bus – TWICE!

Then there was the time Hannah decided to tell me about that crowded bus she was on in India where she held on for two and a half hours. The bus did not have toilets and the bus driver refused to stop and she had an appalling case of Delhi Belly.  When she finally got off the bus, she kindly tells me, she practically exploded and it was one of those toilets that’s just a hole in the ground. I was sweating just listening to it. She knew I struggled with this issue so she finished the story with some encouraging words for me; ‘If I can hold on with the shits for two and a half hours, you can definitely hold on over Battersea Bridge!’.

My friend Mimi told me about her friend at a party who met this great guy and then she got locked out of an apartment and crapped her pants and I honestly can’t remember all the details but I do remember that she was wearing white jeans. That’s the abiding memory, white jeans and a guy she was trying to impress. It’s the stuff of nightmares!

It’s been 14 years now that I have suffered from this totally outlandish, despite Humphrey, Hannah and Mimi’s experience, ailment and it is better than it was. But it’s still there. I take a hefty dose of anti-anxieties every day, I have had a lot of great therapy on multiple occasions and I do yoga and breathing exercises but I can’t rid myself of the damn thing.

I am a very rational person; I am solutions oriented and I am not a defeatist but my brain is really stuck on this one. So, I have come to accept it in way. It’s there and I deal with it.

One day I might actually have a bad tummy and I might actually shit myself on a bus and maybe that will be the cure for it. But, in the interim, I will continue with my breathing exercises and mind games and will remind myself of the words one excellent therapist said to me; the brain is a wolf in sheep’s clothing.